editor's voice

On the evening of Monday, May 18, I was overwhelmed by the support that this community showed for the Voice when you gathered at Roscoe's to raise funds and spirits. My commitment to community journalism and the Voice was renewed by the outpouring.

Earlier this year, a group of Voice supporters--aware of our recession blues--began meeting over beers and burgers at the Olive Lounge to hatch a plan to help bolster their newspaper. They had become aware of the particular stress that we have felt over the past two years--as all local businesses struggle to stay in the black.

When the Friends of the Voice came to me with the idea of holding a fundraiser, I never expected that they would end up packing Roscoe's, the new restaurant directly below our office. I chalk up much of the success of this fundraiser to the persuasive powers and good karma of Howard Kohn, Diana Kohn, Seth Grimes, Sue Katz Miller, Jill Feasley, Elizabeth Brinkama, Jay Keller, and Roz Grigsby. We're not sure how many people were in attendance in total. But we do know that over 200 people signed up to support us.

(And I am well-aware of and grateful for the tremendous support I receive every month, most notably from my longtime Assistant Editor Julie Wiatt--but also from the many contributor, volunteers, and advertisers who keep this grassroots newspaper chugging along.)

While it has always been a monthly struggle to publish the Voice, running this humble publication over the past 16 years has been my dream job. (The Voice turns 21 this year.) We strive to be the Life Magazine of the community, keeping track of the many people and their stories which make this the place I call home.

I am motivated by tremendous affection for my two hometowns: Silver Spring is the location of my earliest memories, from the little brick house on Dublin Avenue to Dennis Avenue Elementary School and Giffords's ice cream shop. Takoma Park has been my home for the past 20 years, such a neighborly place that you can rarely walk down the street without running into a friend and an excuse to grab a cup of coffee.

My daughter is probably a little bit tired of hearing me tell her how lucky she is to live in a hometown. But she is lucky. Places like this have been disappearing for 50 years--places where your home was more than a place to park your car and pull down the blinds. And hometown ethos is what has made it such a joy to try to capture Takoma Park and Silver Spring in print, (and increasingly online).

Hometown spirit is worth preserving. I think that the current economic crisis is causing people across the United States and across the world to pause and consider life on a more elemental level. The gadgetry and big boxes are hollow next to good old fashioned neighborliness and personal connections that were on display at Roscoe's on May 18.

Thank you all.

-- Eric Bond, editor
Takoma Voice
Silver Spring Voice

Some events are both joyous and sobering--a call for celebration, but not for gloating. Armistice is one such event. As the guns fall silent, both parties enjoy relief from combat, but also contemplate the reconstruction and difficult reconciliation ahead. This is a bit of the feeling we have at the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States.

On the one hand we feel delirious relief and hope. Barack Obama has rekindled our democratic faith with his idealism, intelligence, and grace. We are all the more inspired by the response of our fellow citizens, choosing hope over fear.

Yet we Americans live among the rubble of a political system that has been heavily shelled. Decades of cynical culture wars, abuses of power, and perversions of the Constitution have left many of us suspicious of our fellow citizens  and worried about the future of this nation.

This is a moment that demands greatness. And Obama appears to have the fortitude for the job.

Of course, the election of Barack Obama does not magically transform that landscape. But in this calm, this armistice, we can take a breath and bask in the intangible, yet vital, rays of hope.

And there is no question about how profoundly this election of a son of Kenya and the American heartland reinforces our notion of American as an ideal, not a genetic marker.

It remains to be seen to what extent Barack Obama will transform government, but his serious, focused campaign certainly inspires us.  

A few days ago, on Election Day, veteran poll watchers at the Takoma Park Middle precinct marveled at voters who had never before waited this long, one hour, two hours, even longer, to cast a ballot. It was a United Nations kind of crowd that is too rare a sight  around here, despite all our rhetoric about local diversity.  The mood in the long line was casual and festive as if there was no other place one could possibly want to be on this particular day.

In a tactical sense these votes for President did not matter. An Obama victory in Maryland was a foregone conclusion. Up and down the line, though, strangers struck up conversations and repeated the same sentiment, "I want to be part of history."

The following morning a woman boarded a local bus and was overheard to say, "The country that I love loves me back!"

It was a bit of appreciative eloquence worthy of Obama himself, and it may best explain why, even before taking office, our next President is being compared to another skinny politician from Illinois who also occupied the White House at a time when there was a need for greatness.